I'm not a military guy, but they should always have revolving crews so the ship is manned at all times (like in the snooze-fest Pandorum, or, you know, reality) or else you could easily end up in a situation like what happened in Pitch Black: you aren't waking up until shit has already hit the fan. People are groggy after Aliens cryo-sleep, that's not good either.The Romulan Republic wrote:Which makes me want to ask: what would be a reasonable force given the mission parameters?
Just in infantry alone, I would assume they'd need (at the least) 4 times the crew they had. There's 300 people there. Sure, maybe there's an accident. But it's also possible there's been an uprising or wave of violence. Point is: they don't know (only Burke does and he ain't spilling the beans) and any reinforcements are months out. I would also assume their ship and the colony costs a lot more than a couple dozen more grunts being paid if nothing comes of it.
To cover maintenance shifts on a ship that big.... a lot more than they had, which was 0. I'm sure anyone here who served on a military ship could give way more info than I could on the exact logistics required to run a ship of that size and be ready when shit hits the fan. Infantry men don't shoot ship guns, pilot ships, fix engines, or any of that shit. They don't know how, it's not their job. Just from some cursory googling: Nimitz-class carriers could take up to 5,000 people. Obviously, with oxygen being at a premium, I doubt SOP is to take everyone they can fit. But 500 people running a ship that big wouldn't be a stretch.
That's kind of the problem when you take an aircraft carrier to pickup some stranded co-eds who fell off their jet-ski: no matter the parameters of the mission, your choice of ride kind of dictates a lot of what you're dragging along with you.
They had, what, one pilot and one-copilot? (except Ripley). And both of them ended up on the planet? Hell, they ALL ended up on the planet? That's ballsy. Stupid, but ballsy.